On 20 December 2017 Harvard Club of Russia held a talk with Mr. Alexei Marei, ex-CEO of Alfa Bank on the current state of the Russian banking system and technological challenges to traditional banking. Alexey Marei has raised the issues of future banking, financial institutions with IT departments or IT companies with banking license and innovation in banking. Besides, attention was given to crisis in Russian banking system, nationalization of banks, competition with state owned banks. The discussion was moderated by Vagan Vardanyan, Partner SpaceIn, Alexander Nadmitov, the President of Harvard Club of Russia.